This is a basic quick-start-guide. As you get more familiar with DVDShrink you can explore the options and experiment with different settings. You should be able to back up about 99% of all your movies just using DVDShrink and your DVD burning software. Most movies will only take about 15-25 minutes from start-to-finish (your results may vary depending on the speed of your system).

Note: DVDShrink does NOT have DVD burning software built into it. By default it will automatically pass the chore of burning DVD's to Nero. If you don't have Nero installed on your system you can configure DVDShrink to use your DVD burning software. If you don't have any DVD burning software, you can use DVDdecrypter for burning since it is free.

1). Insert your DVD movie into your DVD burner (close or cancel your movie if it starts to play).
2). Start DVDShrink.

3). Click on "Open Disc", select the drive with the movie you want to backup and then click "OK".

4). It will usually only take about 1-3 minutes on most DVD's to do a quick analysis. You may want to un-check the "Enable video preview" box to speed things up a little.

5). If you get the error in the image below there are a couple of things you can do. Check to make sure the disc is clean and doesn't have a lot of/or any bad scratches (do NOT clean the disc in a circular motion, clean it with an up and down motion from the center of the disc to outer edge while rotating the disc). If the disc is clean and you still get the error, then try the DVDFab Decrypter Guide or DVDdecrypter Guide. DVDShrink may be having a problem with a defective disc, scratch, or the Sony ARccOS copy control found on some of the newer DVD movies (Resident Evil Apocalypse, Little Black Book, The Forgotten, etc.).

6). At this point you could click "Backup!" if you want to copy the whole DVD with everything intact (skip to step 11). If you want to increase the quality of the movie by getting rid of the extra stuff then click "Re-Author" and continue on. Notice under the Compression Settings section it says "50.1%", that means that the video will be compressed to about 50% to make it fit on a 4.7gig blank DVD, which means you will loose some video quality. By getting rid of the extra stuff, you can see in step 9 below that we were able to increase the video quality to 100%. Another advantage of getting rid of all the extra stuff, is the movie will start right-away when you play it back on your DVD player, and will still have the chapters in place so you can skip forward or backward by chapter.

7). Double click the "Main Movie" folder (this may look a little different on Windows XP).

8). Double click the "Title 1" file, and it will be added to the left side. In this case "Title 2" is just the extra angles and I don't want to add it to my backup because it will take up too much space. If you are backing up DVD's with multiple episodes on one DVD (TV shows, Band of Brothers, etc.), you can add multiple titles, or you can back them up individually if you want.

9). Click the "Compression Settings" tab, and un-check all the boxes except "AC3 5.1-ch English". The "Subpicture" section are the subtitles, you can leave the "English" subpicture checked if you want, it really doesn't take up that much space.

10). Click (Set Start/End Frames). Click the top slider bar once, and then use your right and left arrow keys to adjust where you want the movie to start. Notice in the image below that it would have taken 20 seconds to get to the Columbia splash screen. So by adjusting the starting point I can save a little space on the backup, and a little time waiting for the movie to start when I watch it. You can also click the bottom slider bar and adjust the ending point if you want to cut out the credits, which will also save you some space on your backup. When you're done adjusting the Start/End frames, click "OK".

11). Click "Backup!". In the top box select your DVD burner, and in the bottom box select an empty temporary folder on your hard drive to store the files in for burning. If you don't already have an empty temporary folder on your hard drive, create three of them using "Explore" or "My Computer" (DVD_temp1, DVD_temp2, DVD_temp3). You really only need one of them now, but you may need the others later. When you are done click "OK".
NOTE: You will need about 5gig of free space on your hard drive.

12). If you get the message below, just click "Yes" to delete the files from your previous backup.

13). The encoding can take 10-30 minutes or more depending on the movie you are backing up and the speed of your system (I average about 15-25 minutes on my system, which includes encoding and burning).

14). When it is done encoding it will eject the DVD. Remove it and put in a blank DVD. If you have a DVD player and a DVD burner on your system, you can put the movie in the DVD player and a blank DVD in your DVD burner, and you won't have to swap the discs.

Note: DVDShrink does NOT have DVD burning software built into it. By default it will automatically pass the chore of burning DVD's to Nero. If you don't have Nero installed on your system you can configure DVDShrink to use your DVD burning software. If you don't have any DVD burning software, you can use DVDdecrypter for burning since it is free.

Once you put in your blank DVD, it will automatically start burning.

15). Congratulations ...You're done! Notice it says you can delete the files from your hard drive, personally I just leave them there and let DVDShrink delete them when I backup my next movie (see step 12 above). If you want to make another copy of the movie, see the Q&A section below.

16). If you want to back up another movie, just click through the 2-3 message windows, and when you get back to DVDShrink click on "Full Disc" and then start again with step 1 above.

Q&A:

1. Can I burn multiple copies of the same movie?
Yes, If you want to make another copy of the movie you just burned (before you delete the files from your temporary folder), put a blank DVD in your burner, and click "Open Files", and select the temporary folder that you used in step 11 above. Follow the steps above starting with step 4, now when you get to step 11, in the "Select folder for temporary files:" box, select your second temporary backup folder, and then continue following the steps above. Making a second copy this way will save you a little time, but will require more space on your hard drive.

2. Can I split a movie and put it on two DVD's?
Yes, see step 10 above. Just burn the first half of the movie to one DVD, and then burn the last half to another DVD.

3. Can I combine multiple movies from different DVD's onto one DVD?
Yes, you will need a separate temporary directory, and enough space on your hard drive for each movie, plus one extra temporary directory for the final compilation. Just follow steps 1 through 13 above and click the "Cancel" button on step 14 when it asks you to "insert an empty disc to write to". Once you have all the movies ripped (copied) to your hard drive...

Click "Full Disc", then click "Open Files". Select one of the temporary directories where you ripped one of your movies to and click "OK". Now do steps 6, 7, and 8 above. Repeat this process until you have all your movies in the left panel and then continue on at step 9, but make sure on step 11 you select a temporary directory that is empty.

4. Can I take bits and pieces from different movies and create my own movie?
Yes, you can combine the methods used in Q&A 2 and 3.

TIPS:

1. Without going into specifics, if at some point DVDShrink doesn't seem to want to cooperate, just close the program and restart it and see if that solves your problem.

2. If you have problems backing up your DVD's while multi-tasking, then don't multi-task.

3. If you have problems playing burned DVD's on your stand-alone DVD player, make sure it supports DVD-R, or DVD+R media. If it supports the DVD media you are using and you still have problems, see "Tip 4". Twice I have bought bad blank DVD media, the first bad batch burned fine, but would freeze and skip towards the end of the movie, the second bad batch would get an error while trying to burn. It is always good to test several discs from a new batch of DVD media to make sure they burn and play ok.

4. If you have problems with your DVD player or burner, buy a DVD laser lens cleaner. They cost $5-$10 and may save you from throwing away a perfectly good piece of equipment. If the lens cleaner dose not work you may need to open up the case and clean the lens with a Q-tip and alcohol.

5. Increase your copy speeds (without buying a whole new computer). If you know a little bit about computer hardware and are not squeamish about opening the case on your computer, make sure your DVD burner and the hard drive that you are putting the temporary files on, are on separate IDE cables (this can shave a few minutes off your total copy time). For example: if you only have one hard drive then it is probably already connected to IDE1, connect/or make sure your DVD burner is connected to IDE2 (you may need to buy another IDE cable if both drives are connected to the same cable). If you have a separate DVD burner and a DVD player (see step 14 above) on your system, then make sure they are both on IDE2.

[Home]